Art Quote of the Day

Blog

Joseph Green is a spoken word artist, educator, and motivational speaker with over 15 years’ experience in youth development. He co-founded poetryN.O.W., a nonprofit providing creative writing programming and curriculum for DC-area youth and schools. While serving as Split This Rock’s Director of Youth Programs for 3 years, he transferred poetryN.O.W’s work into Split This Rock’s care. Joseph has … Continued

Split this Rock is a longtime poetry partner of Busboys and Poets. Check out the Sunday Kind of Love monthly poetry series at Busboys and Poets every third Sunday of the month from 5-7PM. Typhoon Poem The teacher can’t hear the children over all this monsoon racket, all the zillion spoons whacking the rusty … Continued

Looking for your next good read? Well you’re in luck…Busboys and Poets Books is full of busy little readers! Ellie, Bookstore Supervisor at 5th and K: It’s been a rough month for my attention span, so out of all of the books I started, I finished only two – Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain and The … Continued

Demie is one of our fab servers at Busboys and Poets. Here’s a little about him. Where are you from and what brought you to DC? I am originally from NW DC. After graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA, I decided to move back to DC to perform in musical theater and stay … Continued

In this substantial entry into the history of Black radical politics, Keisha N. Blain uncovers the legion of Black women that made waves in the growing Black nationalist and Garveyite movements of the early Twentieth Century. Black nationalism, which promotes the establishment of a Black nation state as the answer to racial oppression, first gained … Continued

Emily Dickinson wrote, “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there … Continued

Mark Oshiro’s contemporary YA fiction is an incredibly moving story about community, about love, and about taking a stand against prejudice and violence, even when it seems completely hopeless, and it is especially difficult to read. Especially for someone like me, caught up in my own privilege and ignorant of the struggles faced by people … Continued

Bearing the same name as Nina Simone’s iconic song, “Young, Gifted, and Black” explores the lives of 52 black people, both past and present, who have helped shaped different aspects of black culture. As author Jamia Wilson explains in the foreword, “this book is a love letter to our ancestors and the next generation of … Continued

There are rare literary moments when you can truly see an author shine beyond what they have set for you on the page. A sort of kinesthesia takes place as the characters and their stories move in such a compelling way that all five of your senses can’t help but be engaged and feel truly … Continued

In clear, fluid prose, Dave Zirin chronicles the life of legendary Cleveland Browns running back, Jim Brown, from his childhood in St. Simons Island, Georgia, raised by three women, through his NFL and Hollywood acting careers, to his cultural impact as a Black Power icon in the 1960s and beyond. Zirin reveals a complicated picture … Continued

The following is a guest post by Busboys and Poets customer Dr. Donna Oriowo. To read the complete post, please visit her website. Here is a little disclosure about me, I don’t generally like autobiographies. I find that they can be terribly dull and full of pomp. I know I read The Last Black Unicorn … Continued

April in DC – a time to welcome the sun, greet the cherry blossoms and relish the city’s many parks in bloom. April is also National Poetry Month, and being home to a vibrant literary community, DC celebrates every year with a diverse offering of events, readings and books to savor. Here at Busboys and … Continued

Busboys and Poets

Busboys and Poets is a community where racial and cultural connections are consciously uplifted… a place to take a deliberate pause and feed your mind, body and soul… a space for art, culture and politics to intentionally collide… we believe that by creating such a space we can inspire social change and begin to transform our community and the world.